Marijuana Blog

Nevada voters will have the chance to determine whether the state will be the next to legalize recreational cannabis during the next Presidential election.

Earlier last week, the state legislature put the fate of a proposal aimed at legalizing marijuana in the hands of the people after failing to address the issue during the latest session. Lawmakers were given until the weekend to either approve or deny Initiative Petition No 1, but opted to clock out Friday evening without taking up a vote on the measure, automatically adding it to the ballot in 2016.

“Voters will have the opportunity to end marijuana prohibition next year and replace it with a policy that actually makes sense,” said Mason Tvert, director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project, in a recent statement. “Regulating marijuana like alcohol will make Nevada safer by replacing the underground marijuana market with a tightly controlled system of licensed businesses.”

The Nevada initiative would legalize retail pot sales in a manner similar to what is currently underway in Colorado and Washington. The market, of course, would be tightly regulated by the Nevada Department of Taxation, which would oversee nearly every aspect of the trade from cultivation to distribution. A 15% excise tax would be attached to all cannabis products, with tax revenue going to fund public education across the state.

“The initiative will create a significant new source of funding for Nevada schools,” said Tvert. “Marijuana sales that are currently taking place in the underground market are generating revenue for cartels. In a regulated market, marijuana sales will generate revenue for students.”

The Marijuana Policy Project is spearheading this effort, which is good indicator the measure stands a fighting chance at winning approval. The MPP has successfully assisted several other states, including Colorado and Alaska, in legalizing the leaf for recreational purposes.

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Tips for the Prevention and Treatment of Stretching in Cannabis Growth

Growing marijuana plants indoors presents a whole plethora of potential benefits. It gives you the freedom to cultivate strains and plants that would never thrive outdoors. It gives you the chance to learn about the fundamentals of plant growth, and offers you finely tuned control over those same fundamentals. You are the one in charge of the amount of nutrients, water, and light your plants receive. Plus, it gives you a hobby that doesn’t involve sitting in front of a television screen or computer monitor, a rarity in today’s world of intense media addiction.

There are some drawbacks to indoor growing, of course. It requires a lot of electricity. You’ll be producing a lot of extra heat, noise, and some really potent smells. That’s not even taking space into consideration. Do plenty of research before you begin— you want to know what you’re getting into. One of the most common issues with indoor cultivation is watching your plant grow and grow, stretching up and out and eating up all the space in your grow room. For the most part, this is unavoidable, but there are a couple steps you can take to help minimize the stretching.

Grow bushy marijuana plants

To maximize the space you’re using, you’ll want to keep your plants as dense and bushy as possible. This can be accomplished through two different practices. You’ll want to both minimize the distance between nodes and also promote lateral growth. The distance between the nodes essentially just means the distance between the base of the leaf stems on a plant. The greater the distance between the leaves, the more slender and spindly a plant will appear. Make sure to download my free marijuana grow bible at this link and grow like a pro!

Believe it or not, you don’t want spindly plants. If they are tall and thin, its unlikely that they will be able to support the heavy buds that you’re hoping for. You’ll need to expend extra effort to support the plant, and you’ll risk losing your hard-earned buds if any of the stems snap. Not only that, but a stretched plant can easily grow too close to the grow lights. This can cause a whole host of issues: the intense exposure can burn the top of your plants, and lower leaves will receive significantly less light. All of these things will damage the health of your plant, and that means a reduced yield.

As in all things, a preventative approach is best, but if you’re already suffering from stretched plants, there may be able to salvage some of the issues by doing some careful pruning on your plants. Don’t give up! “Careful” is the name of the game when it comes to pruning. In fact, a lot of professional growers will suggest avoiding pruning entirely. Pruning plants before they mature can affect the flow of various hormones within the plant, including auxins. Auxins are part of the group of hormones that coordinate and organize the way a plant grows. If you can learn to manage and redistribute these hormones away from the main trunk and towards the lateral stems, you’ll have a good way of slowing the upward growth of the plant and forcing it to grow outwards.

"The government always used to say, 'We don't know the real bad effects of marijuana. We've never been able to test it,'" Tommy Chong says in the perma-high drawl that made him a counterculture legend as half of Cheech and Chong. "Well, I'm a walking guinea pig. I've been testing it for well over 50 years. I came in fifth on Dancing With the Starsat 76. This old stoner waltzed right by professional athletes because of the marijuana."

In the decade since the comedian spent nine months in jail for sending bongs across state lines in 2004, Chong has become more active than ever in weed advocacy. Today, he is hanging out in his Los Angeles office early in the morning before going to the gym to speak to Rolling Stone about how legal marijuana has found itself in a state of limbo in our nation's capital.

Last year, Washington, D.C. citizens voted in a law that decriminalized weed in a way similar to how Colorado, Alaska and Washington state have done so, but a last-minute provision by Republicans – prohibiting the District from using tax dollars to "enact" the bill – has limited its efficacy. Adults are allowed to possess a maximum of two ounces of pot and grow up to six marijuana plants but the law prohibits its sale and regulation, according to The Washington Post.

Chong finds the whole situation absurd, if not for the fact it seems behind the times. "It's the pot that opened my mind 20 years ago," he says. "When I got high for the first time, when I was 18 years old, I got visions of how one could prosper in this world. Everything just got so clear." Besides, Chong says, pot isn't that dangerous: "You can't OD on marijuana," he says. "People have tried." He laughs.

What's your take on the current legal-weed situation in Washington, D.C.?
Typical Washington. You can smoke it, but you can't buy it and you can't sell it. It's so stupid. These guys are so lame. It's a money game. It's all about a paycheck for Washington, and the rich people are getting people in office that'll keep everybody's mind on everything else but raising taxes.

So you think that this legislation was written in a way to distract people?Yes, totally. Looking at the political situation, it's self-serving for so many people, including the so-called righteous right. People are just doing things just for money.

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Legal marijuana in Colorado has already generated more than $15 million in tax revenue that is specifically earmarked for public schools, according to the latest data from the state's Department of Education.

Since Jan. 1, 2014, when the state's first retail marijuana shops opened, $15.6 million has been generated for the Building Excellent Schools Today (BEST) grant program, said Scott Newell, director of the office of capital construction for the state's Education Department. The marijuana funds for schools were generated via a special voter-approved 15 percent excise tax on marijuana sales.

Newell's office oversees all funds flagged for school construction in the state through BEST. In addition to marijuana excise taxes, additional funding for BEST is provided from state lottery spillover proceeds and interest, as well as the state land trust -- all of which is put into a single fund and dispersed via grants to needy districts and schools.

"This year will mark the first year [marijuana] excise tax dollars will be part of the revenues we provide in the form of grants," Newell said.

The BEST grant program was first established in the state in 2008 as a way to generate additional funding for public schools in the state to renew or replace deteriorating facilities. The grant money is available to state public school districts, charter schools and boards of cooperative educational services, as well as the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind. It can be used for construction of new schools and general construction, in addition to renovation of existing school facility systems and structures.

The BEST program disperses its grant funds annually, Newell explained, and the Education Department projects that in the 2014-2015 fiscal year the program will take in about $108 million in revenue, from all sources, including an estimated $16 million total in marijuana excise taxes. In the fiscal year following, the department projects, it will take in another $16 million from marijuana excise taxes, with a total of more than $90 million in revenue that year.